Baron Cohen

Front 1

What is Autism?

Back 1

Autism is a brain disorder that often makes it hard to communicate with and relate to others. With autism, the different areas of the brain fail to work together.

Front 2

What is the aim?

Back 2

The main aim of this experiment was to investigate if high functioning adults with autism or Asperger syndrome would be impaired on a theory of mind test called the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task.’ The researchers were also interested to find out if females would be better than males on the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task'

Front 3

What was the research method used?

Back 3

Testing the participants also the method used is a natural or quasi experiment. Quasi experiments take advantage of conditions which occur naturally.

Front 4

What was did Group 1 of the sample compose of?

Back 4

Group 1 consisted of sixteen participants with HFA or Asperger syndrome. They were all of normal intelligence. There were 13 men and 3 women

Front 5

What did Group 2 of the sample compose of?

Back 5

Group 2 consisted of fifty age-matched controls (25 male and 25 female) with no history of psychiatric disorder and presumed to be of normal intelligence

Front 6

What did Group 3 of the sample compose of?

Back 6

Group 3 consisted of ten participants with Tourette syndrome. These participants were also age matched with groups 1 and 2. There were eight men and two women, mirroring the sex ratio of group 1. They were all of normal intelligence.

Front 7

What was the Eyes Test?

Back 7

The task involved inferring the mental state of a person just from the information in photographs of a person's eyes. This test aims to assess mind reading and Baron-Cohen et al. argue that this is essentially the same as theory of mind.

Front 8

What is the Strange Stories task?

Back 8

This task involved story comprehension, where the key question in the task either concerned a character's mental states (the experimental condition) or physical events (the control condition).

Front 9

The Eyes Task, the Strange Stories Task, and the two control tasks were presented in what order?

Back 9

They were presented in random order, to all participants

Front 10

Where were they presented?

Back 10

They were tested individually in a quiet room either in their own home, in a researcher’s clinic, or at a lab at the University.

Front 11

The Eyes Task comprised of?

Back 11

Photographs of the eye region of 25 different male and female faces.

Front 12

The photos were taken from?

Back 12

Magazines

Front 13

How were the photo standardized?

Back 13

In that they were all black and white, all from the same region of the face (from midway along the nose to just above the eyebrow) and all of the same size.

Front 14

Each picture was shown for how many seconds?

Back 14

Three

Front 15

Participants were given a forced choice question between two what?

Back 15

Mental states printed under each picture

Front 16

The Experimenter said what to the subject?

Back 16

"Which word best describes what this person is feeling or thinking?"

Front 17

What was the maximum score on the Eyes Test?

Back 17

25

Front 18

What were the results of the Eyes Test?

Back 18

HFA adults with autism or Asperger syndrome did have more difficulties with the Eye Task than both ‘normal’ adults and adults with Tourette syndrome.

Front 19

What were the results of the Strange Stories Task from participants with Tourette syndrome?

Back 19

None of the participants with Tourette syndrome made any mistakes

Front 20

What were the results of the Strange Stories Task from participants with HFA and Asperger syndrome?

Back 20

Participants with autism and Asperger syndrome had difficulties with this task.

Front 21

What happened on the Gender and Emotion Control Tasks?

Back 21

There were no differences between the groups

Front 22

What was the conclusion of the study?

Back 22

Adults with autism or Asperger syndrome do have more difficulties with the Eye Task than both ‘normal’ adults and adults with Tourette syndrome.

Front 23

Why does this study have high control? (Strength)

Back 23

-Variables such as intelligence, sex and developmental disorders.
-The researchers were able to ensure that the differences between the scores of the three groups of participants were something to do with being autistic.

Front 24

Why does this study have Quantitative data? (Strength)

Back 24

The results of the study provided statistical and numerical results

Front 25

What kind of validity does this study have? (Strength)

Back 25

Experimental validity:
-Measures an autistic trait, not a normal one
-Question criteria
-High control over extraneous variables

Front 26

Why is this study replicable? (Strength)

Back 26

Because it was a pencil and paper test which is an easy replicable study

Front 27

Why was did this study have low ecological validity? (Weakness)

Back 27

Because some of the participants were tested in a lab in a University. This isn’t something that people go through usually therefore this doesn’t have much ecological validity.

Front 28

How is this study useful?

Back 28

-The Eyes Test stand as a example of how experimental methods can be applied to the social domain
-It is a useful test with which to identify subtle impairments in social intelligence in otherwise normally intelligent adults

Front 29

What were the ethics of this study?

Back 29

This study was ethical considering that everyone knew what was going on, they knew that they were in a study. Also they weren’t asked to do anything that would negatively affect them or anyone else.

Front 30

Why was Forced Choice a problem of this study?

Back 30

It increased improvement in chance and created too narrow a range for significance

Front 31

Why were the Ceiling Effects a problem of this study?

Back 31

Consistently high scores bias results (lose the ability to detect differences)

Front 32

What were the solutions to the problems faced on this study?

Back 32

-Increase the number of items in the test
-Increase the number of response options on each trial

Front 33

What is the Theory of Mind?

Back 33

Having a theory of mind is the ability to understand that other people have independent minds of their own. This is therefore a cognitive deficit

Front 34

What were in the Independent Variables of this study?

Back 34

The HFA and Asperger Syndrome Subjects

Front 35

What were the Dependent Variables of this study?

Back 35

The Eyes Test